Let me make a rare statement: I agree with just about everything Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said in his call for an investigation of mortgage servicers. But Shelby’s choice of targets sure does bear watching.

Skepticism has crept into the system, and lawyers like the one Taibbi profiles are getting very adept at sniffing out the fraud. This is not hopeless. And actually, people like Taibbi writing about it for a large audience can be part of the solution.

The Decider wants everyone to know — especially those Teabaggers like Jim DeMint who keep saying mean things about his big spending ways — that his fiscal record was actually really awesome.

Democrats had not enjoyed complete control for almost two decades when they won the House, Senate and Presidency in 2008. I would think in that time they would have developed a huge laundry list of minor reforms and structural changes that would help increase the vote among their core constituencies. Yet, look back the past two years, little appears to have been done. It is as if the party is incapable of strategic thinking.

The New York Times business section features almost weekly investigative piece on what can only be described as wide-spread corporate crime. But no one’s going to jail. What used to be called criminal fraud is now called a “business plan.”

I occasionally have the chance to listen to Bill Press’s morning radio show, but had been having trouble listening for very long recently because Press had taken on the mantle of Booster Club member, actively defending Barack Obama as Obama and his team engaged in hippie punching leading up to the midterm elections. That is why it was so surprisingly refreshing to catch a bit of the program this morning and to hear Press and his listeners ranting this morning about how they will completely give up on Obama if he caves in to Republican pressure and extends the Bush tax cuts for the highest income brackets.

GQ has another of those articles describing Eric Holder’s failed efforts to restore DOJ’s independence and sustain rule of law as Attorney General. There are a few new details in there — such as details of what torture was described in the CIA IG Report but must be among the redactions (notably, strangling of one prisoner). The whole piece seems to lay out Holder’s angst as he decides to stick around after being stripped of his independence. Given this detail — the the President himself replaced justice with politics — he really ought to think seriously about regaining his principle by leaving.

I have no idea why there hasn’t been a shakeup in the White House, but the fact that Axelrod is still out there flubbing the messaging seems to indicate that they aren’t aware of the scope of the problem.

• Why is the left so angry and partisan?
• Like a well-oiled machine at the White House these days.
• Catfood Commission pisses off right and left, therefore…it must be good.
• Not so, says Krugman.
• Let the Reagan casket-humping commence.
• Glenn Beck is one sick, twisted racist asshole.

George Bush, sure is having a laugh on all of us.